A blog of the interesting and the unseen

2018

I should have done this wayyyy earlier. As a result, it’s sort of awkward. But here it is, it uses all three prompts, and it’s somewhat on time. Enjoy or cringe – it’s your choice.

Syre could think of a lot of places he’d rather be than where he was. Maybe in a coffee shop with a hot chai latte. Or better yet, under his pet snake’s heat lamp. But he was sitting on the steps outside Peridot Institute, watching the wind toss withered leaves into the oncoming traffic, and wishing desperately that he’d worn his thermal shirt.

He was waiting for his friend Sasha to crash through the doors behind him, the doors that had been locked five minutes ago, just when he’d figured that she wouldn’t mind him changing their meeting spot. He’d tugged on the handle, pleading with his eyes, but Mr. Summerlin had shaken his head and pocketed the keys. Thus rejected, he’d taken a seat on the cold concrete and crossed his arms – more because of the cold than because of his attitude.

Daring to pull up the sleeve of his coat, he checked his watch. She’d been in Miss Jae’s office for thirty minutes now. Whatever she was in trouble for, she’d gotten into it deeper than the Black Forest. He wondered whether he should go home and hear all about it later. Even though he knew she’d be mad at him for deserting her, anything was better than waiting here for another half hour. And besides, it took longer to walk home with Sasha than to walk home alone because she got sidetracked easily and always wanted to explore. If he went ahead and left, he would save himself ten or fifteen frigid minutes.

He was about to get up (and potentially kindle her irritation) when the doors opened behind him. Sasha quickly slammed them shut again, like she’d detonated something inside. “Come on, before they know it was me!” she hissed, nearly dragging him by his hood as he stumbled to follow her.

“What’s up?” he asked as they took off down the sidewalk at a swinging walk.

She dug in her pockets for her mittens, resisting the urge to run. “I might have, just possibly, broken the statue of that old dead guy with the chair.”

“You broke Adam Weishaupt?”

“So that’s how you say his name,” she muttered. “Uh huh.”

Syre chuckled. “Is it fixable?”

“So long as they don’t notice it. I just cracked the base, that’s all. It fits right together again, no problem. I just have to glue it when no one’s looking and – voila! Vice Hopped or however-you-say-it is still standing. Sitting, I guess.”

He shook his head. “How’d he break?”

“I was trying to hurry and get out. Ran into him.”

“Miss Jae sure kept you awhile, didn’t she?”

She nodded.

“What’s up?” he asked, knowing he was treading on thin ice. He tried to catch her eye, but she turned away.

“It’s my stupid grades again.” she muttered.

This wasn’t the first time Sasha had been chastised for grades. She was smart enough, Syre knew, but he felt the problem was that she couldn’t spit back the important information they were required to know – especially in timed tests under Miss Wilshire’s eagle eyes. Naturally easygoing, she was a deer in the headlights when pressed, and both she and Syre knew it. But there was nothing he could say, because he’d made a 99 on the last test. Sasha’s nines had been turned upside down.

So he said nothing, let the hum of passing cars and idling engines fill the space between them.

On any other day, they’d be talking about whatever they saw as they started the long walk to the Straus Square Metro. Every day, twice a day, they had to pass under the concrete-and-steel beam beast known as Brooklyn Bridge, admire the teeny shops set up underneath, their fading signs written in half-Korean. After passing the graffiti-tagged vans and were out of the bridge’s shadow, they only had a few blocks before they would trip down the stairs into the subway car at exactly 4:00.

But today, things would be different. The metro had left without them already due to Sasha’s delay. The other thing Syre was realizing was that he couldn’t let her keep being so dejected. Her optimism, her carefree happiness that she usually had, was what had made them instant friends in the first place.

Biting his lip, he put his arm around her shoulder.

She glanced at his hand hanging next to her backpack strap. Then she looked at him. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing.

“It’s an arm around your shoulder.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “Okay.”

“Look, I know you’re not feeling so great.”

“Yeah.” She sighed.

He looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate.

She kicked a rock in the sidewalk, averting his eyes. “It’s like, all my life I’ve thought everyone liked me just the way I was. And now all the sudden I’m not good enough.”

“I’m sure it’s not that.”

“No, it is. You remember why both of us are in this school.”

He nodded. “Because of what they saw in us.”

“Yeah. But you’re more the type they want. And now I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” she muttered.

“Who says?”

“Everybody.”

“Except Leo,” he offered.

She looked at him as she pushed her glasses up her nose. “Don’t you remember? You’re supposed to call him Mr. Cordova now.”

“Well, sure, I’m supposed to, but since when have I followed the rules? Besides, he likes Leo better anyways.”

“I dunno.”

Syre felt like he was about to grasp the real problem, the thing that had hid behind her braces-clad grin for what must have been months. There was no way to find out for sure (she wasn’t in the mood for spilling her guts right now, he could tell), but it had something to do with Leo.

When Syre had first met Sasha, she’d had a friend in Leo. An odd friend, for sure, considering that he was years older than she was and certainly caught up in more than she knew existed, but a friend nonetheless. She was the captain of a ragtag baseball team, now defunct for school. And then there was him, the mysterious kid who had become friends with her in the most peculiar circumstances.

Now, since Peridot Institute’s reopening, Leo taught the new generation with the other alumni of the school. Busy and enjoying the new life he was leading, he treated Sasha more like the rest of his students. Yes, he was much more partial to her than to anyone else, but the magical thing they had forged out of simply being neighbors was gone. And moving to this new school full of studious, motivated, hero-material kind of people had made her feel like she didn’t belong.

He didn’t want to tell her that Miss Jae might be right, but that seemed to be the case. Even though her unorthodox look at the world was what had gotten her into P.I, she needed to straighten up to succeed. And that was something he felt she would never be good at. He was pulling off alright, but he couldn’t see her being as sober as he was and still being Sasha.

But did he seriously want her to straighten up? Wasn’t she, weird optimism and all, what had changed everything for him? She wouldn’t be any different – it wasn’t like her. And then everything suddenly made sense.

For the first time in her life, Sasha was lonely. Leo, the one who listened faithfully to her weird ideas, was too busy for her. She didn’t have any other friends at this new school except himself. But now he felt like their grades, his success and her capers, had put a division between her and everyone she loved.

He glanced at her pensive face. She was probably jealous, too.

“Look,” he said, feeling just a bit guilty about that, “Let’s go home a different way today.” Just as they were about to cross Broadway, he turned her to the right.

“Why?” she asked. Something sounded different about her voice.

“I dunno,” said Syre, searching rapidly for a newsstand. There had to be one around here somewhere. It was prime time to sell evening papers, they were in a business district…and if there was one thing that could cheer her up, it would be a comic book.

The two of them had disagreed minorly on comics since they’d met. Syre always felt guilty for buying something as silly as a comic book, when there were other better uses of money. But to Sasha, comics were her hobby. She collected comic books, loved everything about them. She called it looking through a giant camera. Once she’d mounted the ladder and peered through the enormous lense, she could see a world larger than the world she lived in, and that enchanted her.

What she needed right now was to feel the way he felt about her – that she was perfect just the way that she was, and that someone cared about her.

He dug in the pocket of his jeans, fingering the five-dollar bill he’d slipped in there earlier.

“So maybe there’s a place I wanna stop by, is that okay?” he asked.

“Sure,” she shrugged.

Finally, he saw it on the green of a nearby park, its red and blue banner flapping in the cold February wind. NEWSPAPERS – MAGAZINES – COMICS, it advertised.

She felt them walking towards it. “I – uh…I don’t have any money, she faltered.”

She stopped in her tracks and looked him dead in the eyes. “But you think comic books are stupid,” she questioned.

“Well, the person I know who likes them isn’t so…”

Her smile flooded back to her face. “Oh, gosh.”

“What are you waiting for?”

It was like doing just that had switched off her depression. In between thanking him, she started talking, just like she used to. It came slowly, awkwardly at first, but soon he could tell she’d forgotten she was lonely. She was back to her old self, talking to whoever would listen, or even pretend to listen. Grey eyes bright again, cheeks red from the biting wind, she looked her old self again.

Their boots crunched in the icy, dead grass. “A laser gun,” she was saying. Syre was so busy thinking about her that he hadn’t been listening. “And then Beta looks at him and says, ‘Did you just shoot down, and possibly kill, Santa?'”

Syre laughed as hard as she did, not really because whatever Christmas-exclusive edition of Inventions Prime was so funny, but because he was overjoyed to see her back to her normal self.

As she pored over the books (and Syre stood watching), the newsboy leaned over and whispered, “Hey, kid, did you see it?”

“No?” Sasha looked at him.

“Christmas is back.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, picking it up. “This is the one I was telling you about, Sy, you gotta come look.”

Syre came and laughed over the zany, ridiculous pages with her. But he found himself looking at her smile more than Beta. Christmas wasn’t the only thing that had returned. The Sasha he knew and loved was back.

I didn’t want to have to go through all the explaining but it would have made almost no sense if I didn’t. I also wanted to stop it when he saw the newstand, but I needed to use the other two prompts.

I’m setting a new record here! I used all three prompts:

She called it looking through a giant camera. Once she’d mounted the ladder and peered through the enormous lense, she could see a world larger than the world she lived in, and that enchanted her.

“A laser gun,” she was saying. Syre was so busy thinking about her that he hadn’t been listening. “And then Beta looks at him and says, ‘Did you just shoot down, and possibly kill, Santa?'”

As she pored over the books (and Syre stood watching), the newsboy leaned over and whispered, “Hey, kid, did you see it?”

“No?” Sasha looked at him.

“Christmas is back.”

I also used my team name:

Whatever she was in trouble for, she’d gotten into it deeper than the Black Forest.

Lamely, albeit, but still.

I also drew these two stupid drawings that I didn’t put in line because I’m not proud of them (and I failed on the backgrounds and ended up cutting them out):

(I just tagged this post as “fun”. Seriously, Tess?)
(But I wouldn’t say I’m doing so bad. After all, this is my FIFTH post this year so far. Considering that I didn’t post last year until Februray 15th, I’m doin’ great. *looks haughtily at those coordinated people who treat their blogs like actual websites and not end-of-the-pipeline imagination dumping grounds*)

Welcome to Issue One of my 2018 Art Dumps (of which most are yet to be made), in which I show you a bunch of pictures you never asked to see and expect you to know how much blood, sweat, graphite and tears went into them. Stick around until the end and you might see something resembling actual talent.

I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, I guess. I have been making improvements. It hasn’t been quick or easy, but I’m getting there. However, I have had my fair share of creeping myself out with strange facial expressions that are a result of bad proportions. (We’ll get to a nice example of that, too.)

The other thing to note is that when I scanned these in, I could barely see the lines, so I had to adjust the brightness and contrast and all that fun. The result is that the background is almost always grey. Oh well, it’s easier on the eyes anyways.

So, without further adieu,

let’s get into it!

(Disclaimer: These are in no particular order, are sometimes kind of cringey and weird looking, and are by no means professional artwork. I’m self taught so yeah.)
(Disclaimer 2: If I catch you stealing any of my artwork I will not hesitate to call you out on it. I mean not like you’d wanna steal it, but just in case you think it’s good enough. XD)

In general my art is 75% wolves and 25% everything else. I’m intrigued to say that it’s not the same case here. The breakdown is 62.5% wolves, 34% humans, and 7% horses. (I calculated carefully, but somehow it adds up to 103.5%. We’ll say that extra 3.5% is eraser shavings.

The reason I haven’t drawn as many wolves as I usually do is because I’ve been animating wolves for that MAP thing I’m doing. (I mean, after spending an hour doing nothing but drawing wolves, I’m not really in the mood to draw any more wolves.) But I have done quite a few – including a series I call Fifteen Wolf Sketches.

F.W.S. came out of a flashcard project I had to do for my Hebrew class. We were supposed to draw pictures on one side and write vocabulary words on the other. My teacher was really miffed at me because I took wayyyy too long to do these, but I think the result was worth it. Let’s go!

For the vocabulary word for “river”. I’d never drawn a wolf doing this so this was a ton of fun.

To descend. Yup, they’re going down quickly – imho, the top one is to die for. LOOK AT HIS LITTLE FEETS.

To take. My sister got so disturbed by the rabbit, it was funny.

To put.

To be pregnant. The passage we’re doing is the first chapters of Exodus, so yep, we gotta learn all the words. *awkward smile*

WOOK AT TEH BEBES. THEY’RE TINY BOLLS OF FLOOF.
Ahem. To nurse.

To go up. This ended up being one of my favorites.

To come. Conversely, this is one of my least favorites.

To draw water. Hey, I don’t think I did so bad, seeing as I couldn’t use any references at all for this. XD

To drink. Well, a form of drinking, anyways. This one is more of the passive version to drink.

To, erm, give birth. Yeah, I wasn’t going to draw that exactly, so I just drew this puppeh meeting his daddy. Awwwwwe….

To see. Her eyebrows are like, not there. Not the best of the bunch.

To stand.

To call. I think I’ve drawn this drawing five times over. It doesn’t get old, though.

To walk. Ahhh, I saved the best of these sketches for last. Here’s my wittle OC Archer, with leg positions that are SPOT ON. Ahhhh.

And now we enter the realm of the Epic Sketchbook. I really need to give him a name – if anyone has any suggestions, I’d appreciate it. He’s enormous and has taught me a lot about drawing large.

Here’s the first drawing I did in him – sort of like a christening. I wish I’d put more definition in his ears but he’s cute.

I am quite proud of this. It took soooooo long (like, three hours) from start to finish, but it’s so worth it. I’m so happy to have this in my sketchbook because it actually has color and makes me look like a pro. XD

A random horse! Haha. I do still love horses. I just don’t draw them as often as I used to. In reality, they’re incredibly hard to draw and pose. But this is proof that I still do it – and I stepped out of my usual outlining style and did soft colored pencil around everything.

In speaking of horses, here’s a partially colored cab. His gait looks subdued but meh, it’s okay. That cab was very hard to draw, and as a result the sizing is a little skewed, but it’s not noticiable if you’re just glancing (which you probably are ;))

This driver looks quite dapper, lap blanket and all. What a shame that I never colored him.

I suppose this also goes under the heading of horse-human drawings. I was interested in drawing humans at this point, but a little under-referenced. But it isn’t exactly easy to use references in a hotel room, which is where I did this. Because of this, we’ll ignore the fact that her horse has no near rein, her head is tiny in comparison to her shoulders, she looks like she’s about to fall asleep, and the stray lines on the bottom. Oh well.

I had grand dreams for this drawing. I was going to completely shade it and make it look wonderful. But I suppose I sort of lost interest. It’s at this point a scrap that needs finishing.

These buildings, though, are pretty awesome.

(ignore the drawing on the back please. this was finished while I was just doodling.)

A little bit of human-wolf affection. Awe. My human bodies are half-decent. They’ll certainly work for now. I have the ability to convey a lot of poses using the top-secret method I use. My faces, though, leave a lot to be desired. I hide them a lot of the time with hair or other things, because when I draw them they end up looking like this a lot of the time:

This is a bona fide Tess mess up! I dubbed her Lolina (not sure why?) and she looks like a nutcracker. The effect is worse than my scanner makes it. THOSE TEETH, WHAT HAPPENED.

It was after dear Lolina that I decided to not draw lips at all. After a bunch more like her, human faces started to make a bit of sense.

I’ve found that profiles are the easiest to draw. It’s all in the nose. And hair is quite easy now that I’ve been practicing. I will admit that I draw most men’s hair in a certain way. It’s not the way I particularly like it, it’s just the way I’ve found that it’s easiest to draw.

When I took the pictures for this post, this drawing was only half-done. I’ve finished it since then. (These are Nano charries :D) I really liked the facial proportions here. After I finish faces, tho, the next battle will be clothes. Because I can’t draw clothes right now to save my life and so everyone wears about the same thing.

(I added the captions. Any guesses as to who these are?)

I thought this turned out pretty good. We’ve got a few issues with the eyes/skintones but it’s pretty decent. Closeups:

Kaori

I think they’re pretty good.

Beofre we get to the last, best one, here’s a scrap:

Hey, his hair is slightly different. Whaddaya know. (This is supposed to be Robin from Ettiquette and my other nano. :D)

Now.

I always save the best for last, as you know, and so I present to you another Nano charrie drawing that came kind of out of nowhere. It’s not even in the big sketchbook. But here we go:

Grab my button!

What I’m Reading…

I began reading this one on a campout. Finished CotW but still working on WF. Note: do not read while sleeping outside in the vacinity of coyotes. You will find that many unpleasant thoughts show themselves and freak you out.

AKA Dickens Tells A Story But Not Really Because Half The Book Is Him Yammering On About Some Miniscule Detail.

Haven’t started yet but I bought it with a gift card. Yeah.

THE book for animators. It’s very entertaining but is PACKED with info.

I’m traumatized rn because this Tarzan is wayy more savage than the Disney one. I’m also traumatized because this one weighs in at almost 800 pages. Wow.